1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to substantially dry, disposable, personal cleansing products.
2. Description of the Related Art
Personal cleansing products have traditionally been marketed in a variety of forms such as bar soaps, creams, lotions, and gels. These formulations have attempted to satisfy a number of criteria to be acceptable to consumers. These criteria include cleansing effectiveness, skin feel, skin mildness and lather volume. Ideal personal cleansers should gently cleanse the skin or hair, cause little or no irritation, and not leave the skin or hair overly dry after frequent use. Personal cleansing products have also been combined with water insoluble fibrous substrates to improve convenience to the user.
A series of granted and pending patent applications have been published by Procter and Gamble describing substantially dry, disposable, personal cleansing products which address many of the aforementioned functionality concerns. These products are substantially dry articles having deposited onto a woven or non-woven cloth a cleansing composition of surfactant, structurant, skin conditioning agent and other performance ingredients. U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,991 (Wagner et al.) focuses on providing the substrate with a conditioning emulsion separately impregnated from the lathering surfactant onto the cloth substrate. U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,931 (Fowler et al.) emphasizes impregnation of oil soluble conditioning agents. Manufacturing processes for these products are reported in U.S. Pat. No. 5,952,043 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,863,663, both to Mackey et al.
Unfortunately, the substantially dry disposable cleansing products disclosed in the prior art are generally unsuitable for cleansing the entire body for various reasons. One weakness of the prior art disposable wipes is that the wipe doesn""t retain its shape well during cleansing after becoming saturated with water. This lack of shape memory causes the wipe to either roll up like a pencil or crumple into a small ball when in use which is especially problematic for a body washing application. Another problem is the deficient latherability found for very mild cleansing agents such as C12 to C24 fatty acids when used in conjunction with the prior art wipes.
The inventive wipe solves the problem of shape memory or xe2x80x9cbounce-backxe2x80x9d by employing a water insoluble substrate, lathering surfactant and structurant system which together unexpectedly provide xe2x80x9cwet flexibilityxe2x80x9d. Wet flexibility is herein defined as the surfactant impregnated wipe""s ability to return to its original shape after being deformed while saturated with water. Substantially dry is herein defined as having a water content of less than about 0.15 weight ratio to the substrate. The inventive wipe further solves the problem of deficient lathering ability of mild cleansing agents, by the unexpected observation that the combination of such mild cleansing agents and an apertured fabric provides a substantial amount of lather during use. In a preferred embodiment, the inventive dry disposable cleansing wipe combines wet flexibility, a mild lathering surfactant, and a C5-C12 alkyl diol structurant system. More preferably, the inventive wipe will be treated with a coating solution containing C5-C12 diol/lathering surfactant ratio between 1 to 8 and 1 to 1. Most preferably, the water insoluble substrate in the inventive wipe has at least one apertured non-woven fabric layer.
This invention relates to a substantially dry, disposable, mild cleansing article for cleansing the body with a good lather comprising a water insoluble substrate having at least one apertured layer impregnated with a lathering surfactant, and the article having wet flexibility.